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Filed 8/19/20

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

KEVIN TOWNSEND,

Defendant and Respondent.

 A158082

 (Alameda County

 Super. Ct. No. 19-CR-005635)

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (the 

Department) appeals from the trial court’s order dismissing a parole 

revocation petition filed against Kevin Townsend and terminating his parole 

term. The Department argues the trial court improperly analyzed how

Townsend’s time spent absconding from parole supervision and in jail on 

parole violations altered his parole discharge date. We agree, and 

accordingly reverse the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On July 18, 2005, Townsend was convicted of transporting or selling a 

controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11352, subd. (a)) and was placed 

on felony probation, but after violating his probation was sentenced to three 
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years in prison. Townsend was released from prison on September 28, 2009, 

subject to a three-year parole term (1,095 days). His original parole release 

date was September 27, 2012. 

From the start of his parole term until June 7, 2019, the date on which 

the trial court issued the order under review, Townsend absconded from 

parole supervision on nine occasions and was jailed five times for parole 

violations, repeatedly pushing back his parole release date. In total over this 

period, Townsend spent 896 days in the community on parole supervision, 

2,309 days absconding from parole supervision, and 334 days in jail on parole 

violations. As a result of this behavior, the Department suspended his parole 

term for the 2,309 days he was at large and extended his parole term by the 

334 days he was in custody, pushing his parole release date to December 23, 

2019. 

After Townsend absconded from parole supervision for the ninth time, 

a warrant was issued for his arrest on November 7, 2017. On March 19, 

2019, Townsend was arrested on this warrant by the Atlantic City Police 

Department in New Jersey and transferred to state custody in California. On 

April 10, 2019, the Department petitioned the court to revoke Townsend’s

parole. 

On June 7, 2019, the trial court denied the petition. The court 

reasoned Townsend’s “parole may not be extended by the time he was in 

custody on the parole violation[s]” and as a result found Townsend’s parole 

had expired “sometime after his release [from jail after a previous parole 

violation] in August of 2017.” According to the trial court, Townsend was 

already off parole by the time the November 7, 2017, warrant for his arrest 

was filed. The court ordered the Department to terminate Townsend’s 

parole. 
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On July 18, 2019, the California Attorney General, representing the 

Department, filed a motion for reconsideration. The Attorney General argued 

the trial court had erred in finding Townsend’s parole release date was not 

extended for the time he spent in jail on parole violations. The Attorney 

General asserted Townsend’s parole period did not end until December 23, 

2019. 

The trial court denied the motion for reconsideration. In a written 

order the court explained its reasoning, asserting “[t]here is no statutory 

authority for extending a parole term for incarceration that occurs after 

reinstatement” of parole, so the time Townsend spent incarcerated on parole 

violations after absconding could not extend his parole term. As a result, the 

court found Townsend’s parole ended on October 7, 2017, and it reaffirmed 

the previous order dismissing the revocation petition and terminating 

Townsend’s parole. In compliance with the court’s order, Townsend was 

discharged from parole. 

The Department timely appealed the court’s order. 

DISCUSSION

The material facts in this case are undisputed. The calculation of 

Townsend’s parole discharge date is a pure question of law. To answer, we 

interpret and apply Penal Code sections 3000, subdivision (b)(6) (section 

3000(b)(6)), and 3064.1 We review questions of statutory interpretation de 

novo. (People v. Tran (2015) 61 Cal.4th 1160, 1166.) 

“In construing a statute, our fundamental task is to ascertain the 

Legislature's intent so as to effectuate the purpose of the statute.” (Smith v.

Superior Court (2006) 39 Cal.4th 77, 83.) “First, we consider the statutory 

language and give the statute’s words their usual and ordinary meaning. 

1 All undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
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[Citation.] The statutory language must be construed in the context of the 

statute as a whole and the overall statutory scheme, giving significance to 

every word, phrase, sentence, and part of an act. [Citation.] If the statutory 

language is unambiguous, the plain meaning controls and consideration of 

extrinsic sources to determine the Legislature’s intent is unnecessary.” 

(People v. Pearl (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 1280, 1288 (Pearl).)

The “period immediately following incarceration is critical to successful 

reintegration of the offender into society and to positive citizenship” (§ 3000, 

subd. (a)(1)), so an offender released from incarceration after serving a prison 

sentence is subject to a period of parole, usually for three years (§ 3000, subd. 

(b)(1), (2)(A)). Section 3000(b)(6) provides, “Upon successful completion of 

parole, or at the end of the maximum statutory period of parole . . . whichever 

is earlier, the [parolee] shall be discharged from custody. The date of the 

maximum statutory period of parole . . . shall be computed from the date of 

initial parole and shall be a period chronologically determined. Time during 

which parole is suspended because the [parolee] has absconded or has been 

returned to custody as a parole violator shall not be credited toward any 

period of parole unless the [parolee] is found not guilty of the parole 

violation.” (Italics added.) This provision exempting time spent absconding 

from parole supervision and time spent in jail on parole violations is the 

statutory language that resolves this case. 

There is a limit on the total amount of time a parolee can be on parole 

supervision or jailed on parole violations. Section 3000, subdivision (b)(6)(A) 

(section 3000(b)(6)(A)) reads, “Except as provided in Section 3064, in no case 

may a prisoner subject to three years on parole be retained under parole 

supervision or in custody for a period longer than four years from the date of 

his or her initial parole.” This means that Townsend’s parole extends past 
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September 28, 2013 only “as provided in Section 3064.” Section 3064 tolls the 

parole period while a parolee is at large. It reads, “From and after the 

suspension or revocation of the parole of any prisoner and until his return to 

custody he is an escapee and fugitive from justice and no part of the time 

during which he is an escapee and fugitive from justice shall be part of his 

term.” 

In Pearl, supra, 172 Cal.App.4th at p. 1290 our colleagues in the Fourth 

District held a parolee is not a fugitive from justice under the language of 

section 3064 when that individual is in custody on parole violations. But a 

parolee is, by definition, a fugitive from justice when that individual is 

absconding from parole supervision. Therefore, under section 3000(b)(6)(A) a 

three-year “parole term may not” be extended to “exceed four years plus the 

amount of time the parolee had been a fugitive from justice . . . regardless of 

how much time the parolee spends in confinement for parole revocations.”

(Id. at p. 1290.) That is, time spent absconding from parole supervision 

suspends the parole period indefinitely, while “ ‘[t]ime spent in custody on a

parole violation . . . extends the parole period’ ” such that a parolee “ ‘may not 

be retained on parole supervision or in custody on a parole violation for more 

than 4 years.’ ” (Id. at p. 1291.)

On September 28, 2009, Townsend was released from prison and began 

his three-year parole term. His initial discharge date was September 27, 

2012. But after 14 days on parole supervision, Townsend absconded and 

spent the next 408 days at large. He was then jailed 21 days for this 

violation. Following section 3000(b)(6)’s mandate, the Department suspended 

his parole term for his absconding time and extended his term for the time he 

spent in jail, pushing his discharge date to November 30, 2013 (i.e., 408 plus 

21 days after September 27, 2012). From there, Townsend absconded from 
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parole supervision eight more times and was jailed another four times on 

parole violations. In total through June 7, 2019, Townsend spent 896 on 

parole supervision in the community, 2,309 days absconding, and 334 days in 

jail on parole violations. Again following section 3000(b)(6)’s directive, the 

Department suspended Townsend’s parole term by the number of days he 

spent absconding and extended his parole term by the number of days he

spent in jail on parole violations, pushing his discharge date out by 2,309 plus 

334 days from September 27, 2012. Because Townsend’s 334 days in jail on 

probation violations totals less than a full year, the Department is correct 

that each day he spent in jail extended his parole term by a day, and that his 

discharge date had to be pushed out by 2,309 plus 334 days. (See 

§ 3000(b)(6)(A).) As articulated below, none of these suspensions and 

extensions violated any other statutory provision. Doing the arithmetic, by 

June 7, 2019, Townsend still had 199 days to serve on parole supervision, and 

his parole discharge date was December 23, 2019. The trial court’s 

miscalculated Townsend’s parole release date and erred in ordering the 

Department to terminate Townsend’s parole supervision.

The trial court’s mistake was to conclude, “[t]here is no statutory 

authority for extending a parole term for incarceration that occurs after 

reinstatement” of parole. The trial court arrived at this conclusion by 

focusing on the language in section 3064 that tolls the period of parole while 

an absconder is a “fugitive from justice,” which tolling lasts from revocation 

“until his return to custody.” (§ 3064.) Because a parolee is no longer a 

“fugitive from justice” once “return[ed] to custody,” the trial court read this 

language, in combination with section 3000(b)(6)(A), to mean “only a parolee’s 

suspended time due to absconding can extend his parole term.” We agree 

with the trial court that custody time imposed after a period of absconding 
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does not toll the parole period pursuant to section 3064. But that same 

custody time does extend the parole period pursuant to section 3000(b)(6), 

which expressly extends a parole term by the time a parolee spends in 

custody on parole violations (limited by the four-year maximum provided in 

section 3000(b)(6)(A)). The court in Pearl, supra, 172 Cal.App.4th at p. 1291

agreed, holding a parolee’s “ ‘[t]ime spent in custody on a parole violation . . . 

extends the parole period . . . [but] he or she may not be retained on parole 

supervision or in custody on a parole violation for more than 4 years’ ” plus 

the amount of time a parolee spends absconding from parole supervision. 

Nothing in Pearl leads to the trial court’s conclusion that a parolee’s term 

cannot be extended at all after reinstatement by time spent in jail on a parole 

violation.2 The trial court erroneously fails to give Townsend’s time spent in 

jail on parole violations for absconding its extending effect.

Townsend argues section 3000(b)(6)(A)’s four-year limit on parole

means the Department’s ability to extend his parole term during periods of 

reincarceration expired on September 28, 2013, four years after his parole 

began. This is also incorrect. That section states, “[e]xcept as provided in 

2 The trial court also found support for its conclusion in the language of 

section 3057, subdivision (b), which states: “Upon completion of confinement

pursuant to parole revocation without a new commitment to prison, the 

inmate shall be released on parole for a period which shall not extend beyond

that portion of the maximum statutory period of parole specified by Section 

3000 which was unexpired at the time of each revocation.” (Italics added.) 

The trial court ignored the italicized portion of this statute, which appears to 

acknowledge that a period of “confinement pursuant to parole revocation” will 

occur before the inmate is released to complete his unexpired parole term. In 

any event, nothing in section 3057 contravenes the express language of 

section 3000(b)(6), which provides that both the “[t]ime during which parole 

is suspended because the [parolee] has absconded” and any period during 

which the parolee “has been returned to custody as a parole violator shall not 

be credited toward any period of parole . . . .” (§ 3000(b)(6).)
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Section 3064, in no case may a [parolee] subject to three years on parole be 

retained under parole supervision or in custody for a period longer than four 

years from the date of his or her initial parole.” Townsend interprets the 

phrase “in no case” to mean section 3000(b)(6)(A) “did not authorize [the 

Department] to extend [Townsend’s] parole beyond four years from his initial 

date of parole.” (Italics removed.) What he means by this is unclear, since he 

also pegs the expiration date for his parole as September 11, 2017, almost 

eight years after his parole began. Regardless, the argument fails because, 

as even Townsend acknowledges, “[t]he term ‘[e]xcept as provided in Section 

3064, . . .’ clarifies that a parolee’s term can extend beyond four years ‘from 

the date of his or her initial parole’ to the extent that the parolee has 

absconded from parole.” This means that in a case like Townsend’s where a

parolee absconds early, section 3064 tolls the initial four-year maximum 

period of parole, as the Department did in Townsend’s case. Applying this 

tolling provision, none of the 2,309 days Townsend spent absconding from 

parole supervision counts against the four-year statutory maximum under 

section 3000(b)(6)(A). Townsend’s maximum statutory period of parole was 

four years (1,460 days) plus the time Townsend spent absconding from parole 

supervision. Because Townsend had spent only 896 days on parole

supervision in the community and 334 days in jail on parole violations (1,230 

days combined) by June 7, 2019, the Department appropriately applied

section 3000(b)(6)(A) in calculating that he was still on parole.

Based on his flawed reading of section 3000(b)(6)(A), Townsend also 

argues the Department should have terminated his parole on September 11, 

2017, because by then “he had served 1,095 days of parole.” But Townsend 

had served only 787 days on parole supervision in the community by 

September 11, 2017, well short of his parole term of 1,095 days. Applying 
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Townsend’s logic would effectively credit the days he spent in jail on parole 

violations towards his parole term, directly contravening section 3000(b)(6)’s 

mandate that “[t]ime during which parole is suspended because the [parolee] 

has absconded or has been returned to custody as a parole violator shall not 

be credited toward any period of parole.” (Italics added.) This we will not do.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is reversed, and the matter remanded so the 

Department’s parole revocation petition may be considered.
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_________________________

TUCHER, J.

WE CONCUR:

_________________________

POLLAK, P. J.

_________________________

BROWN, J.

People v. Townsend (A158082)
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Trial Court: Alameda County Superior Court

Trial Judge: Hon. Scott D. Patton

Counsel for Appellant: Xavier Becerra, Attorney General; Phillip 

J. Lindsay, Senior Assistant Attorney 

General; Sara J. Romano, Supervising 

Deputy Attorney General; Michael G. 

Lagrama, Deputy Attorney General 

Counsel for Respondent: Randall Conner, by Court-Appointment 

under the First District Appellate 

Project’s Independent Case System